Making the paper: Glorious memories of the print edition of The Star-Ledger

As a young journalist learning the craft, getting the daily product out – in good times and bad – was a thrill of a lifetime

The phone call came around noon, right around the time the first flakes were falling.

“They’re calling for at least a foot; we better get going now or we’ll never get in there,” Kevin Manahan told me.

It was February of 1996. Manahan and I were on the desk of The Star-Ledger sports department. We usually arrived around 6 p.m. to begin a process that saw five editions of a paper go to press, starting at 11 p.m. and going well into the night. That’s how you get more than 500,000 copies to readers.

Manahan was right. If we didn’t head into Newark early, the coming snowstorm – and the traffic snarls that surely would result from it – would have prevented us from doing what we did without fail, 365 days a year.

Our dedication not only showed our love of our craft – but our love for the Newhouse family, who treated all of us so well. I was still a newbie at the paper, but I quickly learned to appreciate the special relationship that existed – the type of employee-employer relationship that is a rarity today.

By the time Manahan and I arrived in the office that day, the snow was coming down harder and faster. We watched most of the day crew leave early – while taking phone calls from much of the night crew, who said the roads had become impassable.

By 6 p.m., there were just a handful of editors on the third floor of the old Star-Ledger building on Washington Street in Newark. It was up to us to ensure the paper would not miss an edition.

***

It’s hard to describe what it was like to work at The Star-Ledger in its heyday.

I fell into it through dumb luck.

Having just graduated from school in Virginia, I got what is believed to be the first-ever Star-Ledger internship. A family friend who worked at the paper hooked me up. That’s the way it worked back then.

When a staffer decided to retire two days before my internship ended, my luck continued. The sports editor at the time, Willie Klein, decided to keep me on – mostly because it would save him the time and trouble of finding someone else.

I quickly learned how the paper – little known outside the state – was beloved in it. When I told people where I worked, they always responded with reverence.

When I told them that I worked in sports – which had the biggest sports section and the biggest high school sports section in the country – the reaction was even greater.

It was there that I learned the art of working quickly and accurately. And I benefited from working with the greatest group of mentors and friends a young journalist could have ever asked for. People like Manahan, Richie Guenther, Bob Harrison, Chris D’Amico, Kevin Whitmer, Moss Klein and Annette Vazquez, colleagues who were dedicated to the paper – and having a blast while putting it out.

***

I joined The Star-Ledger sports section at just the right time. The Yankees were beginning an incredible run of championships, as were the Devils. Even the lowly Nets found their way into the NBA Finals. Of course, nothing was bigger than the Giants making the Super Bowl.

The World Cup – and the Final Four – came to the Meadowlands. The U.S. Open was played at Baltusrol. New Jersey was the sports capital of the world. And The Star-Ledger sports section captured all of it at a time when few could imagine starting their day without reading a broadsheet paper.

The paper itself, under Jim Willse and then Whitmer, who succeeded Willse, modernized in presentation and improved exponentially in quality. We won Pulitzers.

Our finest work came on the darkest day.

On Sept. 11, I was one of hundreds of employees who came in early to help cover the terrorist attack.

That day marked the last time The Star-Ledger put out an afternoon edition – and the only time I ever left for work with a plan for where I would meet up with my wife and three young children should they be forced to evacuate the area due to more acts of war.

My wife and I packed the minivan with a few sets of clothes, toys, a pack-n-play and some food. Just in case.

I then went into work – early – to help put out the paper, dedicated to bringing the latest news to New Jersey in the best format possible at the time.

***

A few members of The Star-Ledger sports staff, from left: Ed Price, Tom Bergeron, Annette Vazquez, Steve Politi and Kevin Manahan.

I was able to rise through the ranks at the paper. I was promoted to high school sports editor, then deputy editor. And after a two-year stint in Kansas City, I was thrilled to return as sports editor in the summer of 2005.

At the time, I thought I would work at the Ledger – and for the Newhouses – for the rest of my career. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.

I quickly learned you can’t go back in time.

The Ledger that I grew up on was gone. The business model around print clearly wasn’t working anymore. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. There are no moves that could have prevented its downfall.

My tenure as sports editor can be described in two accurate statements:

  • Oversaw the dismantling of a once-great section – one decimated by voluntary buyouts;
  • Oversaw the creation of a 24/7 digital product – one led in sports by a promising intern, Vincent Velasquez.

One moment truly showed me that print was dead.

On June 17, 2008, the Mets fired Willie Randolph … at 3:18 a.m.

The team was on the West Coast, so the move happened earlier there. I got a call minutes after it happened from our beat writer Jeremy Cothrin just minutes after we had put the last print edition to bed.

Once again, I went into work early – arriving at about 4 a.m. (there was no working from home back then). We had two choices: Update the story continuously online – or wait essentially 24 hours to tell New Jerseyans what they already would have known by then.

When the rest of New Jersey got up, we had the news – but this time, it could only be found online. The paper in the driveway already was outdated.

A year later, I took a buyout. I went to work for a digital-only news source: Yahoo!

***

The Star-Ledger put out its final print edition on Sunday. The slow march to its inevitable conclusion was complete. (To be clear, it will live on as a digital-only site.)

A few hundred of us met at NJ PAC Sunday afternoon for a reunion. The fact that so many came – almost all of whom hadn’t worked at the paper for more than a decade – showed the reverence we had for the paper. It truly was special.

We talked about the good times. The wild times. The tough times.

I thought about that snowstorm in 1996.

“At least a foot” was far from accurate. More than two feet fell throughout the state (27 inches in Newark). The state was paralyzed.

Manahan and I (and the late Abe Abukoff) did our duty: We got the paper out. Not that anyone saw it. The roads were closed. The paper was stuck at the plants.

And we were stuck … at the Ledger.

I slept on the floor of the photo morgue that night. Others found spots around the newsroom. We woke up to find a state in worse shape than the night before. Then we learned the hard truth: Reinforcements would struggle to find their way in. So, we stayed all day – and put the next edition of the paper out, too.

Well after midnight on that second day – after about 36 hours in the building – I found my way home and to my new wife of just over a year who was wondering what she had gotten herself into. And while the experience was hell, working for The Star-Ledger always was heaven. If I had known when I left that this would be a two-day shift, the only thing I would have done differently was grab a toothbrush.

I’m sad to see the Ledger be put to bed for the last time. But I’m forever grateful for all the time I was lucky enough to have been part of the process. It was the greatest thrill of my career.